Jason Ross: What is the real target audience during and after the IMTC?
Pat Thornton: The manufacturers with access to mass amounts of suitable thinnings and/or peeler cores. Although large forest thinners, peeler core suppliers, and forest managers sit at the top of the chain, they are not necessarily the most capable manufacturers in maintaining QA and compliance.
Other interested parties may be construction companies, environmental NGOs, policymakers, state and federal agencies, and universities. Loggo’s pitch to all of them is a lower-cost, greener market alternative to the incumbents — covering single and double-storey dwellings, mid-rise multi-residential accommodation up to eight storeys, as well as government and commercial buildings.
What Loggo is offering at the IMTC and beyond spans multiple deal structures. IP sales, joint ventures, manufacturing and supply licences, and royalty agreements are all on the table.
Jason Ross: In brief, what aspects of Loggo brought you here?
Pat Thornton: “Loggo is a lightweight mass timber system pitching itself as an affordable, very low-carbon alternative to concrete and steel — as well as a unique hybridiser to CLT and glulam — a potential game-changer for construction in the United States, where the Department of Agriculture is actively seeking to better utilise small-diameter logs to manufacture housing from its own domestic lumber supply.“
The Australian-invented system has spent fifteen years clandestinely developing and patenting precisely the solution Washington is now looking for — and the timing of this week’s appearance could not be more deliberate.
Jason Ross: With more than 70 patents, trademarks and other IP covering Loggo worldwide, what does that mean for potential partners?
Pat Thornton: Our patents are a licence to make large profits and keep end prices competitive.
If the earth had its hemispheres screwed on right, the so-called forward-thinkers and those that genuinely harbour commonsense and care within the forestry and mass timber industry will be knocking on the table at Booth 770 — or at least following our story thereafter. It may well be one of the smallest exhibitions with one of the biggest impacts on future framing solutions on this planet. Loggo is in its infancy and has not yet begun to design.
Jason Ross: Anything else comes to mind?
Pat Thornton: Unlike sawn or glue-laminated timber, the logs travel from the forest into the built environment with minimal intermediate processing — but importantly retaining their stronger, natural round shape.
In addition, a database of Lamilog bearer and column testing for radiata and spotted gum is being finalised at the Department of Primary Industries laboratory in Queensland, through an Australian Research Council grant within the Advanced Timber Hub, under the directorship of Professor Keith Crews, who has been instrumental in the evolution of the concept since 2010.
And then there is the 3D downscaled 20:1 framing model being presented at Portland, which is, by any measure, quite extraordinary. The early birds will get the rewards because the Loggo process is still in its infancy. Now is precisely the moment for American operators to move, as sovereignty over domestic timber is being declared, and Loggo’s patents can protect partners from interstate dumping.
Jason Ross: What about a staged market entry — what would that look like for a company that is intrigued but cautious?
Pat Thornton: Initially, clients can stage the introduction of Loggo’s simplest joists and beams — the I-Log and the B-I-Log — to the market. They can stage its adaption and replacement of traditional EWP beams and Loggo floors into traditional framed buildings and renovations. An example would be using I-Logs or B-I-Logs into and onto other types of bearers.
The further upstream the better — forest owners, managers, thinnings dealers, peeler core suppliers, sawmillers — in that Loggo replaces your GHG-heavy LVL, sawn, and other framing timber with a low-cost small-diameter product. You just add adhesive and screws to your own peeler cores and your own ply or thinnings, and go into your projects.
- To learn more about the Loggo system, click here to visit the website.
